Cybercrime in Progress

Theory and prevention of technology-enabled offenses

Thomas J Holt, Adam M Bossler, Thomas Holt, Adam Bossler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138066144
• eBook ISBN: 9781317688983
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The emergence of the World Wide Web, smartphones, and computers has transformed the world and enabled individuals to engage in crimes in a multitude of new ways. Criminological scholarship on these issues has increased dramatically over the last decade, as have studies on ways to prevent and police these offenses. This book is one of the first texts to provide a comprehensive review of research regarding cybercrime, policing and enforcing these offenses, and the prevention of various offenses as global change and technology adoption increases the risk of victimization around the world.

Drawing on a wide range of literature, Holt and Bossler offer an extensive synthesis of numerous contemporary topics such as theories used to account for cybercrime, policing in domestic and transnational contexts, cybercrime victimization and issues in cybercrime prevention. The findings provide a roadmap for future research in cybercrime, policing, and technology, and discuss key controversies in the existing research literature in a way that is otherwise absent from textbooks and general cybercrime readers.

This book is an invaluable resource for academics, practitioners, and students interested in understanding the state of the art in social science research. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students interested in cybercrime, cyber-deviance, victimization, policing, criminological theory, and technology in general.

Cybercrime scholarship is moving from the descriptive to the analytical, with a rapidly accumulating evidence base. This book contains a valuable overview of major issues in cybercrime research, from theory testing to practical preventive measures. Informative, eminently readable, and richly documented, its impressive compilation and ordering of research findings will enlighten a generation of cybercrime students.

Peter Grabosky, Professor Emeritus, Australian National University, Australia

Cybercrime in Progress is by far the most comprehensive yet incisive book on cybercrime available anywhere. It is written with clarity, authority and vision, so well written, in fact, that it would be an appropriate text for any undergraduate or graduate class. The title Cybercrime in Progress captures the essence of cybercrime: it is a moving and fluid target, changing constantly, creating new opportunities for offenders; new challenges for society’s traditional responses to crime. Many people may think that cybercrime is too technical to understand. This book will change all that. Holt and Bossler are masters of their craft: they succinctly sum up the short history of cybercrime, point to the gaps in our responses to it, and tell us exactly what we must do in the future if we are to control it.

Graeme Newman, Distinguished Teaching Professor, University at Albany, USA

Thomas Holt and Adam Bossler have done a really great job in locating cybercrimes and the future development of online criminal opportunities within the context of the various criminological debates. This book should not only help students undertake their studies into cybercrime, but also assist established scholars in coming to grips with this interesting, but constantly shifting area of interdisciplinary study.

David S. Wall, Professor of Criminology, University of Leeds, UK

Cybercrime in Progress

The emergence of the World Wide Web, smartphones, and computers has transformed the world and enabled individuals to engage in crimes in a multitude of new ways. Criminological scholarship on these issues has increased dramatically over the last decade, as have studies on ways to prevent and police these offenses. This book is one of the first texts to provide a comprehensive review of research regarding cybercrime, policing, the enforcement of these offenses, and the prevention of various offenses as global change and technology adoption increase the risk of victimization around the world.

Drawing on a wide range of literature, Holt and Bossler offer an extensive synthesis of numerous contemporary topics, such as theories used to account for cybercrime, policing in domestic and transnational contexts, cybercrime victimization, and issues in cybercrime prevention. The findings provide a roadmap for future research in cybercrime, policing, and technology. Holt and Bossler discuss key controversies in the existing research literature in a way that is otherwise absent from textbooks and general cybercrime readers.

This book is an invaluable resource for academics, practitioners, and students interested in understanding the state of the art in social science cybercrime research. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students interested in cybercrime, cyber-deviance, victimization, policing, criminological theory, and technology in general.

Thomas J. Holt is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, specializing in cybercrime, policing, and policy.

Adam M. Bossler is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University, specializing in cybercrime, policing, and innovative corrections.

Crime Science Series

Edited by Richard Wortley, University College, London

Crime science is a new way of thinking about and responding to the problem of crime in society. The distinctive nature of crime science is captured in the name.

First, crime science is about crime. Instead of the usual focus in criminology on the characteristics of the criminal offender, crime science is concerned with the characteristics of the criminal event. The analysis shifts from the distant causes of criminality – biological makeup, upbringing, social disadvantage and the like – to the near causes of crime. Crime scientists are interested in why, where, when and how particular crimes occur. They examine trends and patterns in crime in order to devise immediate and practical strategies to disrupt these patterns.

Second, crime science is about science. Many traditional responses to crime control are unsystematic, reactive, and populist, too often based on untested assumptions about what works. In contrast, crime science advocates an evidence-based, problem-solving approach to crime control. Adopting the scientific method, crime scientists collect data on crime, generate hypotheses about observed crime trends, devise interventions to respond to crime problems, and test the adequacy of those interventions.

Crime science is utilitarian in its orientation and multidisciplinary in its foundations. Crime scientists actively engage with front-line criminal justice practitioners to reduce crime by making it more difficult for individuals to offend, and making it more likely that they will be detected if they do offend. To achieve these objectives, crime science draws on disciplines from both the social and physical sciences, including criminology, sociology, psychology, geography, economics, architecture, industrial design, epidemiology, computer science, mathematics, engineering, and biology.

1. Superhighway Robbery
   Graeme R. Newman and Ronald V. Clarke
2. Crime Reduction and Problem-oriented Policing
   Edited by Karen Bullock and Nick Tilley
3. Crime Science
   New Approaches to Preventing and Detecting Crime
   Edited by Melissa J. Smith and Nick Tilley
4. Problem-oriented Policing and Partnerships
   Implementing an evidence-based approach to crime reduction
   Karen Bullock, Rosie Erol and Nick Tilley
5. Preventing Child Sexual Abuse
   Stephen Smallbone, William L. Marshall and Richard Wortley
6. Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis
   Edited by Richard Wortley and Lorraine Mazerolle
7. Raising the Bar
   Preventing aggression in and around bars, pubs and clubs
   Kathryn Graham and Ross Homel
8. Situational Prevention of Organised Crimes
   Edited by Karen Bullock, Ronald V. Clarke and Nick Tilley
9. Psychological Criminology
   An integrative approach
   Richard Wortley
10. The Reasoning Criminologist
    Essays in honour of Ronald V. Clarke
    Edited by Nick Tilley and Graham Farrell
11. Patterns, Prevention and Geometry of Crime
    Edited by Martin A. Andresen and J. Bryan Kinney
12. Evolution and Crime
    Jason Roach and Ken Pease
13. Cognition and Crime
    Offender decision-making and script analyses
    Edited by Benoit LeClerc and Richard Wortley
14. Affect and cognition in criminal decision making
    Between rational choices and lapses of self-control
    Edited by Jean-Louis van Gelder, Henk Elffers, Daniel Nagin and Danielle Reynald
15. Situational Prevention of Poaching
    Edited by AM Lemieux
16. Applied Police Research
    Challenges and opportunities
    Edited by Ella Cockbain and Johannes Knutsson
17. Cybercrime in Progress
    Theory and prevention of technology-enabled offenses
    Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler

Cybercrime in Progress

Theory and prevention of technology-enabled offenses

Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler

First published 2016

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2016 Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler

The right of Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Frontmatter 1
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter 2
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Technology and cybercrime
• 2 Issues in empirical assessments of cybercrime
• 3 Applications of criminological theory to cybercrimes
• 4 Issues in domestic and transnational cybercrime investigation
• 5 Issues in the prevention of cybercrime
• 6 The future of cybercrime, technology, and enforcement
• Glossary
• Index